Worcester man pleads guilty in fatal shooting

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A man who gunned down a member of a rival gang during a daytime brawl outside Worcester City Hall two years ago pleaded guilty Monday to voluntary manslaughter.

Nathaniel Robinson, 21, was sentenced to 10 to 11 years in prison. He initially had faced a murder charge in the November 2011 shooting death of Javier Santiago, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, as well as weapons and ammunition counts.

What started as a fight between two men quickly escalated as fellow gang members arrived at the scene, according to The Telegram & Gazette (http://bit.ly/14HVJRO ).

Several others, including Santiago and one of his lifelong friends, followed the pair into an alley to watch the fight, Assistant District Attorney Joseph Quinlan said.

The groups dispersed because police were nearby, but soon faced off again on another side of city hall, he said. At that time, Robinson and another man showed up. The other man handed Robinson a gun hidden in a sock, which he used to shoot Santiago, the prosecutor said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Robinson fled to New York City after the shooting but was tracked down about a week later.

The man who allegedly gave Robinson the gun used in the shooting awaits trial on a murder charge.

"There's no words to explain the pain I'm going through," Santiago's mother, Nilda Cintron, said in her victim-impact statement.